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Life with orthodontic braces as an adult: What happened at my latest tightening appointment

Posted on 1:15pm Friday 2nd Mar 2018

Welcome to my latest Braces at 30 blog post where I share my experience of wearing a brace as an adult with updates from each appointment. I had my braces fitted when I was 30 years old. I’m now 32 and this month marks my 2 year brace anniversary! Some people are lucky enough to have a brace nowadays for only six months or so, but my teeth had so many issues I needed the full on train track braces with an estimated length of 18-24 months. I passed the 18 month mark a long time ago, so knew it was more than likely going to take 24 months. I will be having my top brace removed this month and the bottom will stay on for a while to close gaps and try to lift a tooth up. But, the end is finally in sight!

Braces at 30 | 16th Tightening | 24 Months

I’m so amazed it’s been two years already. It’s flown by. One of the scariest things about getting a brace is the duration. At the beginning two years sounds like such a long time and it could even be off-putting for some people, but the sooner you make that decision and get started, the sooner it will all be over and hopefully you’ll think it was worth it! I know both me and Ben are dying for my brace to be removed now. Though two years has flown by, it has also felt like this brace has been on forever and I can’t imagine brace-free teeth! They’ll feel so different.

I won’t get too excited though as I need to wear a retainer full time for a while and have my false teeth fitted after six months.

Here’s what happened at my appointment:

Top teeth

Last month one of my canines had started twisting so I had to go back a wire to twist it. Luckily this had twisted back into the correct position and my wire is now the thickest stainless steel. I just have a tiny 0.5mm gap to close where my false tooth will be to reduce this overall gap and this should be done by my retainer mould appointment! I go back on the 20th of this month to have the top brace off and a mould taken from my top teeth for a retainer, all being well. Very exciting. Then I’ll have a fitting for the retainer the next day. Let’s hope nothing major goes wrong with my teeth beforehand and I can stick to this plan.

Bottom teeth

I’m sure my bottom right lateral incisor is leaning in and not perfectly upright. It’s causing it to look much shorter than the other teeth, but I’m certain this is because it’s on a slant. For this appointment the wire was just tightened and more elastics added to close gaps. We were just closing the front four teeth after filing away some of the sides of my teeth to straighten the edges and bring them together, but now more elastics have been added to bring more teeth together. Where the front four had closed more, it had created a big (couple of mm) gap next to them so this all needs closing. I think it will be a few more appointments to close all these bottom gaps, file the teeth and get them as perfect as can be with no gaps or leaning teeth.

Hopefully by the time the bottom brace is ready to come off, I will already have had the top retainer on for a while and be ready for my false teeth. My orthodontist predicts 6 months of the retainer at the top before I can go ahead and fit the false teeth.